"Damn you, shut up...."
He was in great physical pain, the pain that always came to him when he was tired out, but that was nothing to the mental torture. Twisted figures—Rachel, Breton, himself, the Duchess—passed before him, mingling, separating, sometimes coming to him as though they were there with him in the room. He had not, even on the day that had told him that he would never get up again, felt so near to utter defeat as he was now. He had been proud of himself, proud of his resistance to what, with another man, might have appeared utter catastrophe, proud of his dogged determination. "To have the devil beat...." To-night this same devil was going to be too much for him, did he not fight his very hardest, and the cruelty of it was that this weather took all one's vitality out of one, drained one dry, left one a rag.
"Curse you, get out," he muttered, clenching his teeth, then whistled and brought Jacob instantly to his side. The dog jumped on to the long sofa, taking care not to touch his master's legs. Then he moved up into the hollow of Roddy's arm and lay there warm against Roddy's side.
"What's the use?" The Creature was close to him, his breath warm and damp like the night air. "She doesn't care for you. You can see that she doesn't. She's been in love with her cousin for ever so long, only you didn't know. Wouldn't she have told you that she was a friend of his if there had been nothing more than that in it? What a fool you are—lying here all broken up, simply in the way of her happiness, no good to yourself or anyone else."
"I wish the thunder would come and smash you up...." Then, more desperately, "What if that's right? if I were to clear out...."
"After all," said the Creature, "you've never before seen yourself as you really are. You thought that you were all right because you could use your legs and arms. Now you know what you are—You're nothing—only something that many people must trouble to keep alive—useless—useless! Why not?"
Yes, Roddy did see himself to-night, sternly; as in the old days he might have looked upon someone and judged him unfit, so now he would confront himself. "It's quite true. You've got nothing—nothing to show, you've no intellect, you're selfish, you despise all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. You've stood a little pain—so can any man. You'd better get out—no one will know."
"Yes," said the Creature, very close to him now. "You can do it so easily. That morphia that you've had once or twice—an overdose. No one would suppose.... She would never know, and you'd be rid for ever of all this wrong and you'd free so many people from so much trouble."
"Jacob, my son," he whispered, "do you hear what they're saying?"
He went right down, down to the depths of a pit that closed about his head, filled his eyes with darkness, was suffocating.